1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, specifically, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer data transferring and database management. In particular, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for computer-to-computer data transfer in conjunction with database management, and still more particularly, within the context of social networking.
2. Description of Related Art
The field of electronic social networking has received much attention recently with the success of the Internet sites of social networking services, such as LinkedIn™ and Facebook™. The purpose of these sites is to leverage the Internet in creating social networks in which associations or “links” between persons are represented by data that is managed by the social networking service; a set of such associations represents an ad-hoc social network.
Typically, an ad-hoc social network is created in a two-step process. First, a social networking service operates by requiring a user to register on the website of the service. Second, the user may then invite other persons, if not already registered, to register with the service and subsequently connect or link to the user, i.e., create an association between themselves and the user. In this manner, the network continues to grow as each user invites other people to join, and they may then link to each other if they choose.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,069,308, takes this two-step process one step farther by allowing for “degrees of separation”. According to the method in this patent, social networks are created as with other electronic social networking services. In addition, instead of merely providing a mechanism for one registrant to connect to another registrant, a communication tool is provided so that a registrant (R0) can “introduce” a first registrant (R1) of their network to a second registrant (R2) of their network. In turn, R2 can introduce R1 to a third registrant (R3) who is a member of R2's network. In this way, R1 is introduced to R3 even though R1 and R3 are not directly linked to each other. They are, in fact, linked through R0 and R2.
As described hereinabove, when a user tries to connect to other people through a social networking service, the user can only connect with other users who are already in the social networking service's database; otherwise, the user must invite those other people to join the social networking service. In other words, if a user searches the social networking service's database in an attempt to link to a known person, the user can only find other users who are already in the social networking service's database. Entries within the database are created during the registration process; registration on a website of a social networking service creates a personal profile that represents the user to some degree in an electronic manner within a database. The personal profile contains personal data that is stored within a database that is managed by the social networking service.
Hence, a user must entrust the social networking service with management of personal data to some degree. Moreover, at some point in time, invited users must also register with the social networking service before they can link with an inviting user, and the invited users must also entrust the social networking service with management of personal data. Clearly, the value of any current social networking service is directly proportional to the willingness of users to entrust management over copies of their personal data by the social networking service.
To facilitate the ability of a user to connect with friends, family, and colleagues, some social networking sites allow a user to upload a list of their personal contacts to the service's website, e.g., names and associated email addresses from an electronic address book. However, this action also requires the user to entrust one's valuable contact information to a third party, i.e., the social networking service. Thus, a user must relinquish additional control over some of their personal information in order to take advantage of such features of the social networking service.
Although the ability of persons to electronically associate with each other in a social networking service through the Internet is very useful, the prior art methodology for doing so has the disadvantage of requiring each user to register with the social networking service, thereby entrusting management of some of the users' personal data to the social networking service. If a person is unwilling to trust a social networking service and does not register with the service, then the users of the service cannot communicate with that untrusting person through the service. Distrust of a social networking service by some potential users limits the efficacy of the service because some users will have valuable personal relationships with those untrusting persons, and those valuable personal relationships will remain unrepresented within the social networking service.
As modern society has progressed in the last few decades, the efficiency of the modern economy has relied upon digital data processing, wherein members of modern society are represented, to an ever increasing extent, as digital data. The financial, commercial, social, and governmental actions, events, and behaviors of everyone are captured as digital data in a variety of databases that are controlled by various entities. For most people, the ability to control their personal data is very limited. Although there are some statutory and regulatory controls on the manner in which private and public entities are allowed to capture, hold, and process such data, each person's relatively minor control over his or her own personal digital data is a burden that one must bear in order to participate in modern society, e.g., using the current social networking services as described above.
It would be advantageous to have a method and an apparatus in which functionality for electronic social networking is provided without a requirement for users to register with a social networking service, thereby alleviating users of the burden of entrusting management of personal data to a social networking service. It would be further advantageous to provide functionality in which users have the ability to control management of personal data for social networking purposes throughout a variety of datastores rather than requiring the storage of personal data within a centralized database.